F12 rear mesh vent paint bubbling....a primer

Hello Friends,
Now that I believe I have sorted out my rear hatch leak, I wanted to turn my attention to the rear mesh vents in a bid to PREVENT what I believe is inevitable for every F12....paint bubbling.

Putting the car on the lift and removing wheels and rear well liners revealed a few interesting things. The drivers side mesh vent cannot be accessed from in the wheel well, you must go in through the trunk (image 1 and 2). There is a solid bulkhead blocking access to that rear quarter panel "chamber".

On the passenger side, the story is different (Image 3 and 4). The evap/purge canister is mounted in that "window", and it must be removed to be able to access the mesh vent.

The other "interesting thing" about these mesh vents is that infuriatingly so, they appear to have NO practical purpose.
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Removing the driver's side mesh was a real pain. You must remove the interior trims from the trunk, including the leather panel that runs along the edge of the hatch lip. These trims are fragile and very tightly wedged into their respective locations so be careful. The leather panel fastens by means of a single 8mm bolt at the top edge of the trim, two snap fasteners, and a t20 torx screw that is hidden UNDER the rear trunk trim panel.

To access the actual mesh, you must remove the plastic drainage tray that bolts under the mesh. This drainage tray empties to the outside via a drain tube that you saw in the previous post. The rubber grommet of the tube can just be worked loose and then pushed INWARD into the quarter panel chamber. It will need to be free to remove the drain tray from inside the trunk. The drain tray is fastened to the body by way of six or seven 8mm bolts. You have to practically be spiderman to do this stupid job, and will have to remove them by feel. Once the drain tray is removed, the mesh actually anchors to the body by way of five 8mm bolts. Same story.

Image 1 shows the ALREADY RUSTING steel mesh.

At this point I turned my attention to the body lip where corrosion usually is seen, and much to my horror I saw the beginnings of bubbling on my precious car. If you look carefully at Image 2 the red arrow shows the beginnings of "bubbling". To the right and left of the arrow are white abrasions on the undersurface of the body that are from contact with the mesh. You can also see another bubble to the left of all of this, but honestly it is on the undersurface of the lip and I believe its probably a paint drip.

Inspecting around the entire edge where the mesh meets the body showed several other areas of abrasion from the mesh. (Image 3)
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Thankfully, this damage is at a very early stage and I believe I can impact it positively. My plan will be to remove the corrosion bubble, and apply SEM self etching primer to the bare aluminum. After taping off the area, I used a razor blade to remove the paint over the bubble, which crumbled away. (image 1). I then cleaned all areas of abrasion with denatured alcohol and applied the SEM primer (Image 2) Once this dries, I will apply touch up base color and touch up clear to all of the areas. These areas are so small that I need to use a microbrush to do it. All of the other 'points of contact' that I found will receive the same treatment.

The next step will be to fully strip the steel mesh, reprime, and repaint it. I had to do the same thing on my 550.

I'm in the process of correcting the car's finish, and once this is done I will ceramic coat it with Kamikaze products. I will also glass coat the inner lip where the touch up was applied.

Once all of this is done, I will reinstall the mesh with plastic spacers that drop it away from the body by 1-2mm. I think that is all I will need to ensure that this never becomes an issue again.
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I removed the other mesh last evening, and I find no evidence of bubbling on the passenger side of my vehicle. There are a few abraded spots underneath the lip, but no corrosion has occurred to the best I can see.

Regarding the vents themselves, in my experience when these vents are present there is usually some reason. For example, in my 550 there was a quarter panel vent underneath which lived the gearbox oil cooler. There is no such machinery or equipment in either one of the F12 quarter panels. The only thing I can come up with is that these vents serve to decompress air pressure inside the wheel wells. So I guess it’s possible there is an aerodynamic reason for their existence, but otherwise I don’t see one.

For the poster who suggested that nothing I did was going to make any difference and that I should just let Ferrari fix it, no. I do not want the rear quarter panel of my car resprayed to deal with a tiny spot of bubbling that is the size of the head of a pin. I scraped the area of corrosion down to bare metal, and re-primed the surface prior to applying paint. This is exactly what any body shop would do. I am just lucky that it is such a small area that I can do this without it being apparent. I would prefer to keep my car original, and it’s paint is likely going to be very difficult to match.

I have a two-year power warranty on the car. I will keep a careful watch over this spot, and should it recur or worsen I will have them fix it. However, my bet is that the actions that I take here will prevent any further damage from occurring.

 

Yes indeed, this was one factor in my decision to get the warranty. However, I am well aware of Ferraris habit of abandoning customers when problems arise, so I felt that the warranty would offer me a little bit of security for the “next thing” that might come up with the F12.

 

Absolutely brother! Great advice. My garage is air-conditioned, and the car does not get driven in the rain. In addition, a leaf blower is an integral part of any car wash process to prevent marring.

 

It took me a little bit to get the job done, but the vents are finished. Once the grilles were stripped, sanded, and repainted, I fitted nylon spacers in a trial and error fashion to drop the grill height 1-2mm away from the quarter panel lip. Using two of these spacers at each screw site (Image 1) I was able to get a good fit. Two of the pictured spacers on top of each other measure 3.15mm thick.
This is what the grilles look like once the spacers are placed (Image 2).

Images 3,4 and 5 show the grille fastened back into place in the quarter panel, with an equal gap around all edges. It takes a little bit of jimmying to get all angles equal.

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